#L1BRARY OF CONGRESS. I 

# # 

# • # 

I UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. J 



SPEECH 



OF 



EON. WILLIAM E. ROBINSON, 



OF NEW YORK, 



ON 



RECONSTRUCTION; 



DELIVERED 



IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, JULY 12, 1867. 



■J 3 



"Our theory of government has no place for a State except in the Union." * * * * * "To 
oblige the central authority to govern half the territory of the Union by Federal officers and by the Army 
is a policy not only uncongenial to our ideas and principles, but preeminently dangerous to the spirit 
of our Government." — Rev, Henry \Yard Beecher. 



3Ce9 



WASHINGTON: 

PRINTED AT THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE OFFICE. 

1867. 



RECONSTRUCTION 



The House having under consideration the bill 
supplementary to an act to provide for the more effi- 
cient government of the rebel States — 

Mr. ROBINSON said : 

Mr. Speaker : I have desired to say a word 
or two during these debates on the subject of 
reconstruction, and now rise, not to make any 
set speech, but merely to submit a few obser- 
vations which I deem pertinent to the occa- 
sion. 

What, sir, has brought us together at this 
time in extraordinary session of Congress? 
Has anything been done by the South to pro- 
voke it? Has any southern man or southern 
woman or southern child done or said any- 
thing calling for harsher laws than those we 
have already imposed upon them ? No ; it is 
merely because the proper officer of our Gov- 
ernment has given a proper opinion on what 
some call a very improper act of Congress, 
that the representatives of the people and the 
representatives of the States have been called 
away from their pleasant homes to this hot and 
dusty city in this heated terra. You have not 
even the poor pretext of anything done by our 
southern brethren for this additional legisla- 
tion, for they have submitted with unprece- 
dented willingness to every enormity of legis- 
lation put upon them. 

Sir, a short time ago, during the present 
Congress, the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 
[Mr. Stevens,] the gentleman from Ohio, 
[Mr. Bingham,] the gentleman from Massa- 
chusetts, [Mr. Butler,] and gentlemen from 
every State in the Union then represented here 
voted the sympathy of the American people 



with the people of Ireland, suffering under the 
cruel wrongs and oppressive laws which Eng- 
land had inflicted upon her. That island is not 
much larger than the first three districts of 
New York, and has a population not exceed- 
ing five or six millions. Every Representative 
on this floor voted his sympathy with Ireland 
in her sufferings from British oppression. But 
here are ten States, with a population more 
than twice the number of that of Ireland, and 
ten or twenty times its extent ; our own terri- 
tory, our own people, under our own flag, 
enduring oppression such as no British Gov- 
ernment ever attempted to force upon Ireland. 
Why, sir, have we not heard that a military 
governor, under a law which we have now met 
professedly to make more stringent and more 
despotic, has removed municipal and State 
officers without trial and without any given 
reason? Have we not heard of a military gov- 
ernor, under a law now to be made more severe, 
who stopped a civic procession till they pro- 
cured and consented to carry a certain flag, to 
salute that flag, uncovering three paces before 
reaching it, bowing their necks as they passed 
it, and remaining uncovered three paces beyond 
it? What would have been the consequences 
if some poor fellow, blinded with dust and 
bedizzened with its splendor, had made a mis- 
step or a miscalculation of steps, and uncov- 
ered only two and a half pa ces before approach- 
ing, and bowed when half a pace beyond, I can- 
not tell. But this I do know: that during the 
seven centuries of British misrule in Ireland 
no military commander ever dared to remove 
from office without accusation and trial even 



4 



an alderman of Cork or Dublin, or any other 
Irish city ; and though the Irish people had 
cursed the British flag in oratory and song, no 
military governor or tyrant ever dared to ask 
them to carry that flag in any of their proces- 
sions or to uncover or bow their heads while 
passing it. Oh, sir, it is a sorry spectacle to 
see the Representatives of a Republican people 
voting sympathy with the sufferers under the 
misgovernment and oppression of our neigh- 
bors while planning and perpetrating for our 
own fellow-citizens acts of tyranny and mis- 
government such as no monarch, emperor, or 
tyrant ever yet inflicted upon a subjected peo- 
ple, however rebellious they may have been. 
If British rule in Ireland were as tyrannical as 
ours is in these ten suffering States every man, 
woman, and child in Ireland would be a Fenian. 
It is with the deepest sorrow I make this asser- 
tion. I do it to avert, if possible, the spirit of 
oppressive legislation, which if practiced in 
any other country would call forth our sym- 
pathy for the sufferers and our condemnation 
of the oppressor. 

Mr. KELLEY. "Will the gentleman yield 
for a moment ? 

Mr. ROBINSON. I will yield with pleas^ 
ure. 

Mr. KELLEY. I beg leave to say to the 
gentleman from Ireland [laughter] that no 
longer ago than yesterday I introduced on this 
floor a very devoted son of the Emerald Isle, 
who has been for some years a naturalized 
citizen of the United States and a resident of 
the State of North Carolina, who appealed to 
the various members to whom I introduced 
him to overthrow by express letter everything 
in the form of government in the South, save 
the laws of Congress as administered by the 
military commanders, and he presented to 
these gentlemen, as well as to me, the argu- 
ment that the very life was beinp: crushed out 
of every loyal man, not by the United States 
Government, but by the pretended State and 
local governments of the South. And the gen- 
tleman will not, if he travels through the South, 
find one out of every ten of tl.e Irish Ameri- 
can citizens there who does not look to Con- 
gress to protect them from opjiression greater 
than they endured in Ireland. 

Mr. ROBINSON. In reply to what the 



eloquent gentleman from Pennsylvania has 
said, I need only say that I doubt not there are 
a thousand Irishmen to-day living under Brit- 
ish rule, for whose victims we so recently unan- 
imously voted the sympathy of the American 
people, who would appeal to the British Par- 
liament if introduced upon its floor to over- 
throw by express letter everything but British 
rule in Ireland as administered by her Castle- 
reaghs and Derbys, and would present that 
the verj- life would be crushed out of every 
loyal man if the Fitzgeralds and Emmets and 
O'Briens had succeeded in overthrowing that 
British rule in Ireland, against which we so 
I'ecently and unanimously protested in this 
House ; and the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
will not, if he travels through Ireland, find one 
out of every ten of the loyal men in Ireland 
who feed and fatten on the patronage of Brit- 
ish rule in their starving country who docs 
not look to the British Parliament to protect 
them and preserve them from the calamity of 
granting to Ireland her rights and liberties. 
And it is no argument to me that because some 
Irishman, who has foresworn allegiance to Brit- 
ish power and British law and fled from their 
oppressions, has here become the apologist of 
laws more galling and oppressive than those 
whose authors he foreswore, that I should see 
others faults and not my own ; that I should join 
in voting condemnation on our neighbors and 
cover up our own faults, equal, if not far tran- 
scending theirs. I care not who such a man 
is, he is not a true Irishman ; but a British — you 
may fill up the blank as you please. 

Mr. KELLEY. I did not say that that gen- 
tleman said he had fled from the oppression he 
speaks of. I apprehend that like the gentle- 
man he came here because America was a freer 
country than Ireland. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I thank the gentleman 
for that word "was." It was a freer country. 
I was here an old Clay Whig when the Demo- 
crats were in power, daily protesting against 
their attempts to infringe the rights of minori- 
ties and trample down the safeguards of our 
Constitution, but they never dared to trample 
on the rights of their political opponents ; they 
never dared to override all constitutional pro- 
visions to perpetuate their power, as the party 
in a majority here are now doing. I was an 



old-line Whig then, and I would be a recreant 
and a coward if I failed to denounce now enor- 
mities greater than those I then denounced. 

Sir, I have some idea what these loyal south- 
ern men are who come here to invoke oppres- 
sion on their people. I know the power of 
misrepresentation. I know the efforts made to 
excite and keep alive a spirit of revenge against 
the people of the South by persons calling them- 
selves southern loyalists. I know the indigni- 
ties heaped upon the southern people and the 
threats made against them if they dared to com- 
plain. I know that when the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania made his speech to the people of 
Mobile he said they must be quiet for he had 
the military at his back. This must have been 
very soothing and calculated to hasten recon- 
struction when he informed them that it might 
be necessary to urge home his arguments with 
the bayonet. 

Mr. KBLLEY. I thank the gentleman for 
raising that point, and beg him to yield for a 
moment just here. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Does the gentleman say 
that he did not say so? 

Mr. KELLEY. When the cry "Put him 
down!" "Pull him down!" was raised, I 
answered, "Gentlemen, you cannot put down 
free speech by pulling me down. That is one 
of the rights the exercise of which the Amer- 
ican people established by^the late war. You 
will do nothing toward suppressing it by pull- 
ing me down. You should bear in mind that 
the fifteenth infantry are at my back as a repre- 
sentative of that great principle, and if they 
cannot maintain it in Mobile the United States 
Army will." But that did not cause the riot. 
I proceeded, and the riot did not commence 
until a prearranged signal of two taps upon 
a bell, a pause and then one tap was given ; 
then the gentleman's friends commenced 
shooting at me. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I throw back the impu- 
tation with scorn upon the gentleman from 
Pennsylvania that those who commenced the 
riot were my friends. They were his friends 
who commenced it, and I presume it could be 
so proved if a proper committee were appointed 
to investigate it. I had no friends there, and 
the gentleman knows it. 

[Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, who had 



taken a seat immediately in front of Mr. 
Robinson, said something not heard by the 
reporter.] 

Mr. ROBINSON. I have noi time to 
answer every question put to me, but if the 
venerable and distinguished gentleman from 
Pennsylvania has any question to ask me and 
will state it so that I can hear it, I shall take 
pleasure in trying to answer him. 

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. ■ I only 
said if the balls were going to fly I would 
rather be out of the way. [Laughter.] 

Mr. ROBINSON. I hope he will not move 
away ; I am glad to have the honorable gen- 
tleman near me ; I rejoice to see him over on 
the right side. [Laughter.] The gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] calls me 
the -gentleman from Ireland. Sir, I do not 
claim to represent Ireland, but I am proud to 
claim, here as in all other places, the honor 
of being one of her sons ; but is he not more 
an Irishman than I am, unless he has degen- 
erated like his North Carolina Irishman ? A 
great many Irishmen get degenerated, and 
sometimes they change their names. I rather 
suspect that if a committee to investigate the 
matter were appointed, with the gentleman 
from the Worcester district, Massachusetts, 
[Mr. Baldwin,] one of the best ethnologists 
and antiquarians in the country, and my ana- 
tomatical friend from Ohio, [Mr. Mungen,] and 
my friend from Pennsylvania, [Mr. Scofield,] 
who introduced the other day the belligerent 
letter of Professor Agassiz on the origin of the 
human races, it would be found that the gen- 
tleman from Pennsj'lvania was called O'Kelley 
at home. Hemay say thathe has only mended 
his name by dropping the significant O. When 
he was mending his name he might have mended 
his manners without detriment to either. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. KELLEY. I simply assumed that the 
gentleman represented Ireland, and therein 
differed from me in the fact that I sometimes 
consider and speak upon American topics, 
while he never alludes to any other than Irish. 
[Laughter.] 

Mr. ROBINSON. The gentleman was the 
first to introduce the Irish topic. 

Mr. KELLEY. On the contrary, I did but 
respond to the gentleman's suggestion, that 



6 



we have inflicted upon the southern people 
greater wrongs than England has inflicted on 
the Irish. 

Mr. ROBINSON. My reference was to 
American matters compared with those of 
other countries. 

Now, when interrupted by the gentleman 

from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] I was about 

to say something as to the parties guilty of 

commencing these mobs and riots — for they 

have been made the cause of all this swarm 

of reconstruction bills enacted to subject the 

South to military despotism on the ground that 

life and property were not secure in those 

States. The New York Tribune a few days 

since had an editorial article on the recent 

Birmingham anti-Popery riots. It appears 

that a man had been sent down from London 

to Birmingham to speak against Popery and 

Ritualism. I have no doubt he thought, if 

he did not say, that he had the British army 

At his back. His speeches probably v/ere not 

more bitter than those of the gentleman from 

Pennsylvania were, and shrieked into ears as 

unwilling as those of the people of Mobile. 

No doubt the anti-Ritualist speaker said his 

audiences, whom he was abusing, commenced 

the row. The editor of the Tribune, however, 

takes this sensible view of the matter. He 

says : 

" Vituperation, however, is not controversy. Re- 
ligious enliglitenment does not come of hard names 
and yelling defiance to a crowd of ignorant and ex- 
citable laborers. If a preacher will throw mud at his 
Christian brethren he must expei^t to get spattered 
in return. If he darts into a crowd of Irishmen and 
doubles his fists and dares them to come on, it is the 
most natural thing in the world that he should come 
out of the crowd with a black eye and a torn coat." 

Now, is it not easy to see that vituperation 
or throwing mud or yelling defiance to a crowd 
or threatening to shut their mouths with the 
fifteenth United States infantry might lead to a 
riot in Mobile as well as in Birmingham ? And 
is it not quite natural to suppose that the riots in 
Llobile, New Orleans, and elsewhere were just 
as chargeable to the speakers themselves as to 
the crowd who, even at the points of the fifteenth 
United Statesinfantry bayonets, were compelled 
to listen? The fable of the poor lamb which 
was killed by the wolf for riling the water 
which he was drinking up streatii might serve 
to illustrate many transactions between human 
lambs and human wolves, who must make 



some pretense to throw the blame of the quar- 
rel upon those whom they had determined to 
worry into it anyhow. 

But, sir, New Orleans, Mobile, and Mem- 
phis have not been the only places where mobs 
and riots have occurred, and where human life 
and property have been in danger. If I rightly 
remember, the city from which the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania hails had mobs and riots 
in which churches were sacked and burned and 
lives lost. 

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I rise to a question 
of order. I submitthat this discussion is alto- 
gether wide of the question before the House ; 
and I make the further point of order that 
gentlemen must take their seats. 

Mr. ROBINSON. What is the gentleman's 
point of order? 

Mr. FARNSWORTH. It is that the remarks 
of the gentleman are very wide of the subject 
before the House. 

The SPEAKER pro tempore, (Mr. Cook in 
the chair. ) The Chair overrules the first point 
of order raised by the gentleman, but sustains 
the second ; gentlemen must take their seats. 

Mr. ROBINSON. If I remember correctly 
there were men in that city of Philadelphia, 
dressed in the apparel of men, who had the 
courage to spit in the faces and otherwise 
insult women, and those women sisters of 
charity! I know excuses were then made, as 
they are now made, that the insulted and mal- 
treated were the guilty parties. The weak and 
insulted parties were belied and vilified. The 
spirit of revenge was evoked and scenes of 
carnage and outrage followed, such as have 
never disgraced any city of the South. But 
blood once shed, the demon spirit of revenge, 
bora of hell and accursed of God, which has 
no eyes nor ears nor senses to discriminate 
between right and wrong, was evoked then, as 
it is now evoked, and let loose to shriek for 
more blood and clamor for more vengeance. 

Mr. KELLEY. Will the gentleman allow 
me a moment ? ' 

Mr. ROBINSON. I will yield as much of 
my time as I can afford. 

Mr. KELLEY. I will endeavor to procure 
you compensation for anytime I may consume. 
As the gentleman has made these remarks in 
connection with a somewhat personal colloquy, 



I desire to say that it was my privilege at the 
time to which he has referred, with a police- 
man's staff, to meet armed rioters, and to be 
bespattered with the blood of policemen shot 
at my side while performing the same humble 
duty that I did in defense of those churches. I 
beg leave to say further that the aspersion cast 
upon me in the Mobile Times as a means of 
fomenting a scene of murder was utterly false. 
The lie designed to excite the Irish citizens of 
Mobile against me, that I had abandoned the 
church of my fathers and burned the temples 
in which they had worshipped in Philadelphia, 
was as false as the heart that coined it — that 
of William D. Mann, late of Michigan, but now 
assessor of internal revenue at Mobile and 
owner of the Times. I was born into the Pres- 
byterian church, but forgetting all save the rights 
of man, as the people of Philadelphia, both 
Catholic and Protestant, will bear witness, I 
periled my life to defend the churches to which 
the gentleman alludes, and, as prosecuting at- 
torney, prosecuted those who could be arrested 
and brought to trial for the crime. I was then 
what the gentleman was not — a member of the 
Democratic party. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I was going to ask the 
gentleman as to that. It seems that he has 
been getting wrong while I have been getting 
right. He was a Democrat then, and that with 
some may account for the correct manner in 
which he acted on that occasion ; but I have 
made no allusion to him as having had any- 
thing to do with instigating that riot. 

Mr. KELLEY. I then believed as I do now 
in the rights of humanity for all men, whether , 
Irish or American, whether white or black. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I have referred .to that 
simply to show that life and property have been 
unsafe in northern cities as well as in southern 
cities, and that it is as unfair to inflict these 
oppressive laws upon the whole South for the 
Mobile or New Orleans riots, as it would have 
been to have appointed a military governor to 
play the tyrant over the entire people of Penn- 
sylvania because a few people in Philadelphia 
had engaged in a riot, however fearful. 

Take, again, the State of Massachusetts. A 
seminary of learning under the charge of inno- 
cent and defenseless nuns was burned down by 
a Boston mob. On the lofty walls of that black- 



ened monument of Massachusetts' bigotry stood 
the significant inscription, " The Lord Seeth." 
Year by year these holy, defenseless, innocent 
women have appealed and appealed in vain to 
the State of Massachusetts to pay for their 
losses. Still "the Lord Seeth" that Massa- 
chusetts permitted the outrage, and refused all 
just compensation. 

Mr. WILSON, of Iowa. I rise to a point of 
order : that the remarks of the gentleman are 
not relevant to the subject pending. 

The SPEAKER. The Chair cannot see the 
relevancy of the argument to this bill, which 
is for the reconstruction of various States of 
the Union known as those lately in rebellion. 
The gentleman must be aware that his remarks 
are irrelevant. 

Mr. BUTLER. Will the gentleman yield to 
me a moment? 

Mr. ROBINSON. For a question only. I 
cannot yield for any remarks, as my time is 
nearly up. 

Mr. BUTLER. I do not desire to ask any 
question. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I am sorry the gentle- 
man has run short in his catechism. [Laugh- 
ter.] I was going to refer to another State, if 
I am not out of order. I presume I shall be 
in order if I can move an amendment. Is the 
bill open to amendment? 

The SPEAKER. It is not. The motion to 
recommit is pending. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I want to say, and think 
I can say it in order, that if every State that 
has permitted a mob or a riot to take place, or 
in which life and property are not safe, or ia 
which republican forms of government are 
wanting, is to be put under military dictator- 
ship, (and these are the reasons given why the 
southern States are so put under,) then this 
bill should be so amended as to include Penn- 
sylvania, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire, 
and these States should also be deprived of 
their representatives in both Houses of Con- 
gress, and more particularly New Hampshire, 
the constitution of which to-day precludes Cath- 
olics and other denominations from holding 
office. If any State of the Union needs recon- 
struction it is not Maryland, the mother of Lib- 
erty in this country, but New Hampshire, the 
only country in this world — as there is but one 



8 



in the next — from which men are excluded on 
account of religion. 

The SPEAKER. When the bill shall be 
open to amendment, if the gentleman then 
offers his amendment his remarks would be 
germane. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I submit to the rulings 
of the Speaker, which are almost always cor- 
rect. 

Mr. O'NEILL. I wish to raise a point of 
order. The gentleman from New York having 
traveled through Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, 
and New Hampshire, ought to be permitted to 
come back to his own State of New York to 
explain to this House the draft riots in which 
innocent men were killed 

The SPEAKER. That is not a point of 
order. 

Mr. O'NEILL. In which the colored orphan 
as3'lum was burned to the ground by his own 
Democratic constituents. 

The SPEAKER. The gentleman is out of 
order. 

Mr. O'NEILL. Would it not be in order for 
the gentleman to explain all that? 

The SPEAKER. It would not. 

Mr. ROBINSON. The gentleman from Penn- 
sylvania [Mr. O'Neill] has taken one of my 
favorite topics which are ruled out of order. 
I was coming to that riot, in which a brave 
Irishman and worthy Democrat died in defense 
of our glorious flag in putting down that mob. 
I was going to say something about its origin, 
but we have had no congressional committee 
as yet appointed to inform us whether New 
York also wants reconstruction and a military 
dictator. If Mr. Hoffman had been elected 
Governor it undoubtedly would. I should like 
to say more on this point if it is in order. 

The SPEAKER. It is not. 

Mr. O'NEILL. The gentleman took good 
care, in his long, rambling speech, not to come 
down to his own city. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I should like, by speak- 
ing on that subject, to oblige the gentleman ; 
but the Speaker's decision prevents both of us 
from further indulgence, and I must decline to 
yield any further. I must say, however, that 
while I shall always obey with pleasure the 
rulings of the Speaker, I cannot see how my 
■ remarks are out of order. All these recon- 



struction bills have been based upon the New 
Orleans, Memphis, and other mobs and riots. 
I cannot see why it is not entirely germane to 
the subject under discussion tO show, as New 
York, Philadelphia, and Boston have had 
more serious riots than Mobile, Memphis, or 
New Orleans, and did not need reconstruction 
or military governors, that the southern States, 
where life is quite as safe, and religious liberty 
much better secured, should not have imjDOsed 
upon them a despotism so cruel and antagon- 
istic to the spirit of our institutions. 

Sir, as to the New Orleans riot, it looked 
very like a preconcerted scheme to influence 
the fall elections against the Democrats of the 
North. There is no doubt that the meeting 
of the defunct convention was an illegal assem- 
blage. Parties had come from Louisiana to 
this city to see if they could obtain congres- 
sional support in their rebellion against the 
government which they themselves under a 
Republican member of this House and under 
President Lincoln had established. It was 
urged in secret caucus of the Republican mem- 
bers of Congress that they had better not ad- 
journ the Thirty-Ninth Congress then in sum- 
mer session, for some important matters might 
come to them from New Orleans. General 
Sheridan had been applied to by the president 
of that convention to see whether, if it assem- 
bled, he would grant military protection. He 
replied that he would disperse the mob and 
the convention together. The president then 
abandoned all idea of calling the convention 
and came North. In his absence and the ab- 
sence of General Sheridan a minority of that 
'convention got together, having somehow made 
a president j^ro tempore without any authority, 
in the person of a man whom the convention 
had formerly refused to elect as its i^resident, 
and having held public meetings to fire the 
hearts of the most ignorant classes of society, 
declaring that every man, woman and child in 
the interest of the Lincoln-Banks government 
should be killed, and urging that these ignor- 
ant classes thus stimulated to the killing point 
should come armed in procession to the con- 
vention. That convention, thus heralded, thus 
planned in Washington and New Orleans or 
in both, with assurances of support from Con- 
gress, came together with processions of these 



9' 



inflamed and ignorant classes, with music, 
banners, and arms, and all " the jjomp and 
circumstance of war." The first shot fired 
was by a negro at a municipal officer. 

Sir, this was the beginning of the riot. Had 
the police of New York been so assailed and 
their arrests so rescued, the streets would have 
run with blood or the guilty parties in the pro- 
cession would have been secured. Unfortu- 
nately Sheridan, who had declared that he 
would disperse the convention, was away. 
The military allowed the illegal mobs in the 
streets and in convention to prevail over the 
municipal authorities, and the howl for ven- 
geance and blood swept down truth and reason 
before it. 

Mr. KELLEY. I am sorry to interrupt the 
gentleman again, but he is wrong in saying that 
the gentleman to whom he refers testified that 
he could get support from Congress. The 
gentleman from New York will find if he exam- 
ines the record that the gentleman referred to 
stated that he did not find hero the support 
he had expected. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, the gentleman did 
come here. He got encouragement enough 
to, proceed to call that illegal and revolution- 
ary body together. The proceedings of the 
Republican caucus here showed that parties 
here were cognizant of the movement. The 
getters-up of that convention had been the 
most bitter secessionists, voting to take Louis- 
iana out of the Union, making speeches 
against our flag and our Union, one of them 
since removed by General Sheridan. The gen- 
tleman who stated that a letter signed by three 
members of Congress was in existence, was 
not called by the committee, though his at- 
tendance was requested by the minority of the 
committee. The gentleman to whom I refer 
is, I believe, the so-called Governor of Louis- 
iana, now in this city, Mr. Flanders. 

Mr. KELLY. No sir ; it was Judge Howell 
who swore that he did not get the moral sup- 
port of Congress. 

Mr. ROBINSON. At all events the man 
who said he had seen the letter was not called 
by the committee, because, I presume, they 
did not want too much information. That the 
riot was planned to influence the fall elections 
of 1866, I have no doubt, and such will be 



found the fact if ever a fall and impartial in- 
vestigation can be had. . 

Sir, the South is not represented here to- 
day. Loyal and disloyal are both excluded, 
though it is admitted there are people now 
waiting for admission numerous enough, aftei 
stooping their necks to the military yoke, tc 
comprise ten States in our Union. The chain 
is eating into their flesh, the blood is oozing 
from their pores, while we apparently infu- 
riated into madness by the spirit of revenge, 
are dancing on their prostrate bodies to the 
music of reconstruction. 

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. I sup- 
pose the gentleman is referring to Ander- 
sonville ? 

Mr. ROBINSON. No, sir, I am not. Those 
who shriek for more blood and sufi'ering may 
unfold the gory record of Andersonville. That 
record is terrific enough and ever to be con- 
demned. But there may be exhibited a worse 
spirit than was manifested at Andersonville. 
That has been claimed by the rebels as a mili- 
tary necessity. But there is a spirit of wrong, 
a spirit of Satan, a spirit entirely inconsistent 
with the spirit of the age and of all religion, 
which without the poor excuse of military 
or other necessity shouts for vengeance and 
yells for blood. The present fall elections 
are approaching: again mast the horrors of 
Andersonville be revamped, revarnished, and 
rehearsed : committees at enormous expenses 
wrung from a suffering people be published in 
huge volumes and scattered broadcast over the 
land to renew the wearied spirit of carnage and 
revenge. The poet Moore represents Erin 
sitting on the banks of the Boyne, her Ander- 
sonville, the very mention of whose name 
always renewed the spirit of hell, which the 
spirit of Christ had almost conquered : 

" ' When will this end, ye powers of good ?' 
.She weeping asks forever. 
But only hears from out that flood 
The demon answer, ' Never ! ' " 

And never shall we have reconstruction till 
reconciliation fans its holy spark into a vivify- 
ing flame. Never, while men who should be 
pleading for forgiveness as they hope to be 
forgiven crawl around the tombstones of the 
bloody past like another ' ' Old Mortality, ' ' with 
incessant mallet and steeled chisel deepening 
the records of human frailty which the winds 



10 



and rains of Heaven were mercifully providing 

to obliterate. 

"A canting crew, 
So smooth, so godly, yet so devilish, too. 
Who, armed at once with Bibles and with whips. 
Blood on their hands and Scripture on their lips, 
Tyrants by oreod and torturers by text. 
Make this life hell in honor of the next." 

Let "bygones be bygones" if you ever mean 
to let us become one people again. If you 
mean to keep us forever apart, say so and be 
honest. We have fought the South with their 
Johnstons and their Stonewall Jacksons, and 
they, by our superior numbers and resources, 
are at our feet. The prodigal son, at whom 
the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Ste- 
vens] recently sneered, has returned from 
scenes of dissipation and riotous living. If 
you mean to take him back, do so, and kill the 
fatted calf. If you mean to slay the prodigal 
son and keep the fatted calf kicking up its 
heels around the barn-yard, say so. Do some- 
thing ; but do not talk reconstruction while 
you are plotting disunion. If the erring wife 
has returned, take her to your bosom, or if 
you cannot do this, cast her from you forever. 
Do not be reconstructing her into another and 
different person, for that would not be recon- 
ciliation, but bigamy. [Laughter.] If you 
mean to live with her, banish from beneath your 
roof, as you would a spirit from hell, every 
croaking miscreant who would shriek into both 
your ears the follies and the crimes which you 
both committed and which led to your separa- 
tion. If you mean to restore to the weeping 
Union its former children, oh give her back 
her darling boy, and not the sickly, fairy child 
with which you would mock a mother's prayer. 

Sir, these are words of truth and sober- 
ness. I believe the speediest way to recon- 
struction is honest reconciliation and mutual 
forgiveness. I stand not here to justify the 
South. While she was in rebellion she was 
my enemy ; in submission she becomes again 
my friend. I would not inflict upon her one 
single unnecessary humiliation. Of crimes 
against us she has been guilty, but who can 
cast the first stone of innocence? I tell you 
that there were more crimes against life, per- 
son, and property perpetrated in Massachusetts 
since the rebellion was put down than in South 
Carolina ; crimes deeper and more damnable, 
some even nameless, for which no punishment 



was inflicted, not even expulsion from the legis- 
lative body of which their perpetrators were 
members. I tell you that life and person and 
property have been more unsafe, that crimes 
against them have been more numerous in one 
single northern district than in the entire State 
of North Carolina. Life, liberty, and property 
to-day are in more jeopardy in Tennessee, 
which you do not propose to reconstruct or 
control, than in any other portion of the world. 

Let me go back and say to the gentleman 
from Pennsylvania [Mr. Kelley] that I never 
read the article from the Mobile Times to which 
he referred. I do not know, nor is it my busi- 
ness to inquire, whether he is a Catholic or a 
Presbyterian. I do not profess to be the 
champion of any religious denomination. I 
was simply showing that people who burned 
churches dedicated to the service of the liv- 
ing God, and spat in the faces of defenseless 
women, should be slow to charge upon other 
localities a want of safety to person and prop- 
erty. 

Mr. KELLEY. I prosecuted the cases and 
I never heard of such an allegation before. If 
it were so I think I was in a position to have 
heard it. 

Mr. ROBINSON. If they were not guilty 
of spitting in women's faces they have enough 
to account for instead of hunting up others' 
crimes. 

Mr. FARNSWORTH. I rise to a point of 
order. This bill has nothing to do with the 
burning of churches or spitting in women's 
faces. 

The SPEAKER. The Chair sustains the 
point of order. This is a bill supplementary 
to the reconstruction act, and the burning of 
churches or spitting into women's faces, as the 
gentlemfin from Illinois states, has nothing to 
do with the subject. 

Mr. STEVENS, of Pennsylvania. That 
being the case I rise to move that the speeches 
hereafter be confined to five minutes, and shall 
be confined to the pending subject. 

The SPEAKER. The gentleman from New 
York has the floor and cannot be taken off it 
for that purpose. 

Mr. ELDRIDGE. I object to any further 
interruptions of the gentleman from New York. 

The SPEAKER. He has the floor and has 



11 



uttered no disorderly words that would take 
liim off it. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Mr. Speaker how many 
minutes have I left ? 

The SPEAKER. Twenty minutes. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Sir, we have not got at the 
entire secret of this legislation. Its authors 
strike at the distinguished Attorney General 
of the United States through the prostrate 
South, on which they can further trample, 
rather than answer his arguments. They want 
also to show their teeth at the President of 
the United States. Sir, I have been pained, 
sitting here from day to day, listening to re- 
marks in reference to the President, which, if 
it were parliamentary, I would denounce as 
ribaldry. I have been pained to witness the 
degeneracy in the debates of Congress since 
I was here twenty-five years ago in the capacity 
of a correspondent. As a Clay Whig then I used 
to denounce the Democratic party daily for 
lack of dignity and for assumption of power; 
but, oh, how changed since then ? Is it not 
degeneracy when members on the floor will 
rise from day to day and in a spirit utterly dis- 
graceful to American citizens 

Mr. PILE. I rise to a question of order. I 
ask if this course of remark is in order? 

The SPEAKER. The Chair must decide 
that it is not in order for the gentleman to 
speak of the conduct of his fellow-members as 
disgraceful. He may say that it is unjust, but 
to say that it is disgraceful is a personal reflec- 
tion, which is not considered parliamentary. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Of course I yield to the 
decision of the Speaker. It seems perhaps a 
little Pickwickian to say that a man's actions 
are unjust and yet not disgraceful. But, sir, 
I will say, I trust in order, that I have been ^ 
pained to hear abuse of the President of the 
United States. I believe that any one who 
would try to degrade the President of this great 
Republic in the eyes of the world is a greater 
traitor to our institutions than those who 
starved our prisoners at Andersonville or plot- 
ted treason under Jefferson Davis. It would 
be a greater calamity to have the President, 
the head of our country, made a hissing and a 
scorn to the rest of the world than the continu- 
ance of allJefferson Davis's forces in the field 
for forty years. I have been particularly pained 



by the conduct of a committee of this House, 
which seems to act upon the principle, which 
was formerly followed in Ireland, of hanging 
men for being suspected of being suspicious! 

Sir, there is one in our list of Presidents who 
is, and I trust ever will be, supreme in the 
affections'of the American people. Upon his 
pinnacle of glory he now stands, and there let 
him s!tand forever. I say that, with that one 
exception, and perhaps without exception at 
all, no one of our Presidents could have stood 
the searching investigation which Andiew J ohn- 
son has successfully endured at the hands of 
this energetic committee. That investigation 
has proved that he is the purest man, with per- 
haps this one exception, who ever occupied the 
presidential chair. I doubt whether the house- 
hold of George Washington or of Thomas Jef- 
ferson, or of any other save that of his own, 
could have stood the ordeal. The committee, 
not seeming contented with examining into 
everything themselves, have an attendant, for 
whom we have no name, and for whose services 
I hope there will be no pay, who hunts up in- 
formation for them, descending to visit haunts 
of perjury and crime and the convicts' cells, 
raking the bottoms of these dens of iniquity to 
see if anything can be found to be bribed or 
suborned to testify against the executive head 
of this nation, that he and the people at whose 
head he stands may be degraded in the eyes of 
the world ; eavesdropping and keyholing around 
the back and under entrances of the White 
House, and kneeling to its scullions to see 
whether they can find out what the President 
eats or drinks, or what he does before he goes 
to bed. 

Mr. BROOMALL. I must raise the ques- 
tion of order that the gentleman's remarks are 
not relevant to the question under discussion. 

The SPEAKER. The Chair did not like 
to check the gentleman from New York, who 
appears disposed to take a wide range. I^ut he 
does not see what relevancy the examination 
of the scullions of the White House has to 
the military reconstruction bill. Perhaps, the 
gentleman may be able to explain its rele- 
vancy. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Well, sir, I had under- 
stood that the President and the Attorney 
General were the sole cause of this session. 



12 



I cannot understand why all this interruption 
and these calls to order are now made by a 
party who in almost every speech delivered, 
either in the last or the present Congress, made 
executive action the pretext for these uncon- 
stitutional reconstruction bills. If the Presi- 
dent's failings are urged as an argument for 
the severity of these measures, may not his 
virtues be pleaded against them? 

But I shall try to continue my remarks in 
order. I thought of moving to lay this whole 
matter on the table. I believe that would be 
in order, notwithstanding the pendency of the 
motion to recommit. 

The SPEAKER. That motion would be in 
order. 

Mr. ROBINSON. My opinion is, as I said 
on opening, that this measure is brought in, not 
because the South has done anything to call 
for this new legislation, but to oppose the action 
of the President and his distinguished legal 
adviser ; and I am trying to show that there is 
nothing in the executive action to justify it. 
After descending to the most unjustifiable 
means in search of scandal, to be printed at 
vast expense and to the disgrace of the nation, 
after two years of searching and swearing, no 
man here can stand up and make one single 
charge against Andrew Johnson, either as citi- 
zen or President ; and his persecutors, after all 
their searches, reputable or otherwise, stand 
mute when challenged, as we now challenge 
them, to report a single charge against him. 

Nor has his patriotic family escaped, for even 
on this floor we have heard their names dragged 
in to serve base party purposes. Sir, the 
charming hospitality of that Mansion, the spot- 
less purity of the character of its inmates, the 
weeds of woe scarcely removed which told of 
a gallant son dying in the military service of 
his country, and a lovely daughter widowed by 
the same holy service, might have protected 
that household from the prying propensity of 
committees and the things that pander to their 
purposes. Well might I say, sir, that even 
the household of Washington or Madison or 
Jackson could not have stood the ordeal 
through which our present Chief Magistrate 
has passed. 

Sir, the character of Andrew Johnson defies 
the viper that bites the file. There is, perhaps. 



no better example of American character than 
his. Born in the humble walks of life ; reared 
in lessons of industry, virtue, and religion ; 
self-educated, self-supported, and self-reliant; 
rising by that American rule of gradation from 
a town commissioner and mayor of Greenville 
and trustee of its academy to be member suc- 
cessively of both Houses of the Tennessee Legis- 
lature ; a member of this House, in which he 
proved himself during his repeated terms of 
reelection an able, upright, and eloquent states- 
man ; urging high considerations of national 
policy, inculcating love and harmony between 
the North and South ; denouncing then as now 
all usurpations of power by the General Gov- 
ernment; defending that sacred doctrine of our 
Constitution, State rights, which now, through 
the folly of its violent friends, has been crushed 
to earth, but will rise again ; jealously guard- 
ing the Treasury from plunderers ; defending 
the rights of naturalized citizens ; introducing 
in 1845 and, by determination and indomitable 
tenacity of purpose, carrying and marching with- 
it through both Houses of Congress and over 
executive vetoes, the homestead law ; then 
Governor of the State of Tennessee ; then Sen- 
ator of the United States, where he stood true 
when almost every southern Senator fal ered 
and fell. Then appointed by President Lin- 
coln military Governor of Tennessee, saving, 
by his firmness and bravery, the capital of that 
State by opposing its evacuation. Then nom- 
inated by the Republican party on a platform 
on which he still stands and which they have 
deserted, hurling curses like all deserters at 
those who remain true ; himself and that plat- 
form, since abandoned by its framers, contrib- 
uting largely to the success of the ticket which 
without them would not have been successful. 
Then President of the United States ; a south- 
ern man true to the North ; presiding over a 
northern Congress unforgiving to the South ; 
himself the providential link around which the 
returning emotions of union and harmony will 
yet crystallize and cluster when the enmities of 
the present hour will be forgotten or remem- 
bered only to be deplored. Wise in forethought, 
brave in danger, forgiving in victory, posterity 
will award to him a high position among Amer- 
ican Presidents, equal to any, if not superior 
to all save one. 



13 



The historic RoUin, in sketching the char- 
acter of Cyrus, thus describes his beau ideal 
of a statesman and patriot : 

" But an inward stock of goodness, compassion, and 
gentleness toward the unhappy; an air of modera- 
tion and reserve, even in prosperity and victory; an 
insinuating and persuasive behavior ; tlie art of gain- 
ing people's liearts and attaching them to him more 
by affection than interest; a constant, unalterable 
care always to have right uponhis side, and to imprint 
such a character of justice and equity upon all his 
conduct as his very enemies are forced to revere; 
and lastly, such a clemency as to distinguish those 
that offend through imprudence rather than malice, 
and to leave room for their repentance by giving 
them opportunity to return to their duty. These are 
qualities rarely found in the most celebrated con- 
querors of antiquity, but which shone forth most 
conspicuously in Cyrus." 

Sir, I tell you and this House that Andrew 
Johnson does not deserve and can despise all 
these persecutions heaped upon him. The 
people of these United States, forgetting all his 
trivial faults and remembering his great vir- 
tues; the independent tiller of his own soil, 
secured to him as a homestead through the 
foresight of Andrew Johnson ; the naturalized 
citizen, enjoying his rights largely through the 
opposition of Andrew Johnson to Nativism and 
Know-Nothingism ; the northern people, re- 
membering how he stood as a tower of strength 
against the inroads of secession and disunion, 
and the South remembering that he received 
the most violent abuse which any man ever 
received because he contended that there were 
rights and should be clemency for the fallen : 
these will win for him the gratitude of all true 
citizens of a restored and united country ; 
while those who are persecuting him and seek- 
ing to secure and jjerpetuate disunion and 
strife through these measures falsely called 
reconstruction bills will be execrated by their 
posterity, who will eflFace their forefathers 
names from the tombstones of their burial- 
places, or apply to the Legislatures of their sev- 
eral States to change their names that they may 
get rid of the disgrace of being the descendants 
of their ancestors ! I feel no hesitation in be- 
lieving that Jefferson Davis will, with all his 
faults and crimes and follies, stand better 
with posterity than will any one who by vote 
or voice or deed, after the military necessity 
had passed, struck or attempted to strike one 
star from our glorious constellation of equal 
and sovereign States, or dimmed its luster 
within the Federal Union. The genius of 
American liberty around each State beneath 



her banner draws the magic circle of the re- 
publican church, and on the head of him who 
dares to invade with hostile foot the sanctity 
of that circle she will launch the awful curse 
of her eternal hatred ; and in the fire of that 
hatred and the withering power of that curse 
his memory will shrivel into nothingness or 
live only in the stench of its quenching. 

But, sir, there is another suggestion I wish 
to make, inasmuch as I believe that all this 
legislation is instigated simply through a de- 
sire to influence the next presidential election. 
This truth is so patent that it is difficult to look 
serious when denying it. I urge, then, against 
further legislation of this kind that the next 
President is already chosen, and the gentlemen 
on the other side cannot help it. The people 
have already anticipated and rendered useless 
all caucuses and conventions and their con- 
comitant corruption and log-rolling. The other 
side, though they are afraid to trust him, and 
are plotting to weaken him, cannot prevent his 
election. They dare not put up any of the I'ec- 
ognized advocates of their principles. [Laugh- 
ter.] They will be compelled to vote for him, 
and when elected they will try to use him for 
their own purposes. Need I say that in that 
they will fail, and failing in it, they will de- 
nounce hitn as they denounce Andrew John- 
son, and as they had already begun to denounce 
President Lincoln. Had President Lincoln 
lived, the more conservative, the better half of 
the Republican party, who now seem afraid to 
break away from their bell-wethers, would have 
been with us in sustaining his policy of restor- 
ation, and the more radical portion of the 
party would have been howling to-day for his 
impeachment, as I venture to predict, and am 
willing to risk all the character of prescience 
in politics I might wish to get credit for that 
before our next President gets through with 
them — the first session of next Congress — they 
will be clamoring for his impeachment. I need 
not say that our next President, if he lives, will 
be Ulysses S. Grant. 

" There's a divinity that shapes our ends," 
and that divinity has shown His Almighty 
hand throughout our history. Whether it was 
Washington or Lincoln or Johnson, just as we 
wanted him, the man fitted for the times ap- 
peared. And now, after having led our armies 



14 



with a power and energy never witnessed in 
any war b«ibre, and when there is danger of 
any mere politician playing the demagogue 
and pandering to the excited passions of the 
multitude, the man for the crisis, in whom all 
classes have confidence, who is above the arts 
of the demagogue, and has power with the peo- 
ple to dispense with the wire-pullers and act 
for the public good, steps into the place which 
needs him. 

And now, sir, for the few minutes which 
remain to me let me say that the policy which 
I would adopt has been well and wisely stated 
by ray illustrious constituent, Henry Ward 
Beecher. Mr. Beecher was at Peekskill, on his 
Mount Sinai, and there the Almighty revealed 
from Heaven to him the true doctrine of recon- 
struction, which he wrote in his Cleveland let- 
ter, and which should be engraved on tablets 
of stone. 

Mr. WILSON, of Iowa. I rise to a point of 
order. I insist that the rule should be enforced, 
and that the gentleman should keep to the ques- 
tion. His remarks are certainly not relevant to 
the subject before the House. 

Mr. ROBINSON. Does the gentleman from* 
Iowa say that a message from Heaven is not 
in order in this House? [Laughter.] 

The SPEAKER. The gentleman raises the 
question of order that the inscription of Mr. 
Beecher' s letter upon tablets of stone is not in 
order. 

Mr. ROBINSON. I shall then adopt his 

sentiments as my own, and hope they may then 

be in order. [Laughter.] H*.re are his words : 

"Our theory of government has no place foraState 
except in the Union." * * * * "The Army 
become;; indispensable to local government and 
supersedes it. The Government at Washington is 
called to interfere in one and another difficulty." 

* * * * "OurGovernment, wisely adapted 
to its own proper functions, is utterly devoid of those 
habits and unequipped with the instruments which 
fit a centralized government to exercise authority in 
remote States over local atfixirs." * * * * 
"The Federal Government is unfit to exercise minor 
police and local government, and will inevitably 
blunder when it attempts it. To keep a half score of 
States under Federal authority but without national 
ties and responsibilities ; to oblige the central author- 
ity to govern half the territory of the Union by Fed- 
eral civil officers and by the Army is a policy notonly 
uncongenial to our ideas and principles, but preemi- 
nently dangerous to the spirit of our Government." 

* * * * " Itis.infact, acourseof instruction 
preparing otir Government to be despotic and familiar- 
izing the people to a stretch of aiitliority which can 
never be other than dangerous to liberty." * * 

* * "I hear with wonder and shame and scorn 
the fear of .a few that the South once more in adjust- 
ment with the Federal Government will rule this 



nation." * * * * "Unless wo turn the 
Government into a vast military n^achineXharQ c&vnxot 
be armies enough to protect the frecdmen while 
southern society remains insurrectionary. If south- 
ern society is calmed, settled, and occupied and 
soothed with new hopes and prosperous industries, 
no armies will bo needed; riots will subside." 

* .* * * " Whether we regard the whole 
nation or anv section of it or class in it the first 
demand of ou- times isen/iVcrev)i?'on." * * '■= 

* "For the sake of the freedmen, for the sake of 
the South and its millions of our fellow-countrymen, 
for our men sake, and for the great cause of freedom 
andciviliz ition, I urge the immediate reunion of al! 
the parts which rebellion and war have shattered." 

With this message Mr. Beecher came down 
to his people, as Moses descended, with words 
of wisdom from Heaven. But in his absence 
the Aarons of his congi-egation had set up a 
new god, a blatant calf. He found his pulpit 
in possession of Governor Brownlow and a 
godless crew, who were "swinging round the 
circle" after the President. Amid the cheers 
of his people he heard Brownlow, with the 
spirit of hell condensed into one sentence, < 
and embracing the extreme radical creed of 
reconstruction, shouting: "First kill, then 
burn, then survey;" shoot and otherwise kill 
the men, cut the throats of the women, and 
dash out the brains of the infants sleeping in 
their cradles ; and then, for fear men, women, 
or children might linger through the massacre 
or recover from the carnage, burn the houses 
over their heads that their gore and gashes 
might be licked with the tongue of flame or 
consumed with its breath; and then confiscate. 
Such were the terrible blasphemies which 
greeted his message from Heaven. I forgive 
him for dashing the tablets of stone to pieces. 
God never condescended to give him another 
copy! 

Sir, did time permit, I should ask attention 
to words of wisdom from others who in the 
past and present have pleaded for mutual good 
will, forgiveness, and reconciliation : from 
George Washington, from Abraham Lincoln, 
Andrew Johnson, Horace Greeley, and others, 
who, "with malice towards none, with charity 
for all," would bind up the nation's wounds ; 
and contrast them with those who in the Rad- 
ical column, with Brownlow at their head, and 
"all hell following in the rear," are shouting 
"kill, burn, and survey, impeach, and confis- 
cate, and when the South asks for restoration 
give them the penitentiary of hell." 

Sir, we have been playing political thimblerig 



15 



with the South, and who can tell under which 
thimble the little joker which will secure resto- 
ration is to be found? The lower the South has 
bent the knee the more intolerable have become 
the terms of pardon ; even kindly words from 
any friend of the South were answered with 
greater indignity, till finally conditions are ex- 
acted which none but bullies would demand or 
cravens yield, for "the knee that is forced had 
been better unbent." But there is hope ahead. 
In after years, from a common bond of love, 
beneath a common flag, from a common broth- 
erhood born of our northern children, mingling 
in holy family ties with the children of the 
South, men will look back and wonder that 
there was wickedness enough in the world to 
inflict such injuries upon one another ; but will 
bless the peacemakers among their ancestors 
and curse the miscreants who fanned so long 
the flame of contention. Nay, I shall live to see 
that day ; and shall not be ashamed to look my 
children in the face and to say that there was one 
who fought the rebels throughout the rebellion, 
but when the war was over pleaded for forgive- 
ness, believed in southern honor, and voted as 
he believed ; who never attempted ' ' the future' s 
portal with the past's blood-rusted key ;" who 
would rather grasp the bloody hand of an open 
foe than touch the slimy finger of the coward 
that skulked from danger ; who never kicked 
the undermost dog nor struck a fallen foe. 

"When the foe has knocked under, to tread on him 
then — 
By the list of my father, I blush for thee, Ben !" 

Let me say a closing word for my fellow-cit- 
izens of the South. I cannot forget that they, 
too, have sorrows that might well arouse re- 
venge. There are vacant chairs around many 



a lonely southern hearth. There are madden- 
ing meniories which matched against our own 
and shrieked into each others ears would keep 
us for ever apart. They have hearts to feel 
and eyes to weep for loved ones lost, for hus- 
bands buried on distant battle-fields, fathers 
slaughtered in the mountain passes, and sons 
taken away by early death, all buried in name- 
less and unknown graves. They fought gal- 
lantly, but they are down, and cursed be the 
hand that smites the fallen. I long to see 
them back in the Union, that they and we, 
forgiving and forgetting the past, and girding 
up our loins for the magnificent future, may 
enter upon the career of greatness and glory 
which stretches away before us. 

I have sought to elevate my own mind above 
the vengeance of a divided present, and have 
looked to the brightening flag of a united 
future as the inheritance of glory for a com- 
mon posterity. In days gone by I learned my 
creed from Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, 
John M. Clayton and John J. Crittenden. I 
stand by the record and refuse the teaching of 
Brownlow and Phillips. 

I see in the future an ocean-bound Kepublic ; 
in the immediate future a hundred millions of her 
! united people. Where but a few stars flickered 
j in her sky I see constellations blazing ; the 
flutter of her flag is reflected on every sea, the 
I plash of her propeller vexes every ocean ; and 
i to that future I summon back our brethren of 
i the South, for without them success would be 
! a failure, and our glory would be but shame. 

' Oh would thou wert near me, my southern brother, 
I love thee as dear as the son of my mother; 
I am lonely and sad since the day that we parted, 
My lips have the tone of a maid broken-hearted ; 
But come, from the future fresh flowers ^e'll gather. 
And sing the sweet songs of our Union forever." 



tt 



